The defenses south of Boulogne included MKB Pechnelke, with its four H671 casemates for Vickers 94mm Flak M39(e), of MAA.240 in outskirts of the suburb of Le Porte. These guns were captured in the 1940 battle of France and are often misidentified in historical accounts of the 1944 fighting as 88mm guns. (Author’s collection)
Operation Undergo was again assigned to the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division, supported by the 6th Assault Regiment RE of the 79th Armoured Division with their specialized armor. After a series of delays, the attack began on September 25 with heavy tank and artillery support. Batterie Lindemann could offer little resistance as its guns were pointed to sea, and the garrison surrendered at noon on September 26. Within two days, the two Canadian brigades had cleared through most of the defenses to the southwest of the city, while at the same time routes of escape to the east were cut off. Once again, the old French fortifications such as Fort Lapin proved to be more formidable than the scattered German bunkers, and it was taken only after a determined Canadian infantry assault backed by Churchill Crocodile flamethrowers; the same process was repeated at Fort Nieuley. A temporary truce was called on September 29 to organize the evacuation of civilians still in the city.
The German headquarters for the defense of Boulogne was located on the city’s southern shoulder and was based around StP 261 Pantoffelblume in Fort d’Alprech. On the southern slope of this strongpoint below the Marine Nationale signal tower was this H612 field gun casemate. This provides a good example of a common style of indented camouflage created using rolled-up paper placed in the concrete mold to break up the smooth surface. (Author’s collection)
Canadian troops of the North Shore Regiment pose along the massive 406mm SKC/34 gun of Turm Cäsar in its S262 casemate, one of three belonging to the famous MKB Lindemann of 5./MAA.244, in Sangatte. This battery was submerged as part of the construction of the Channel Tunnel. The chain mail hanging over the gun embrasure was designed to protect against shell splinters and was a common feature on the larger German gun bunkers. (NAC PA-133142 Donald Grant)
While the 7th and 8th Brigades were busy in Calais, the 9th Infantry Brigade was assigned to clear the fortified belt along Cap Gris-Nez including the Batterie Todt with its four massive 380mm guns. By this stage the Canadians had a well-orchestrated scheme for dealing with the bunkers and all four of the main German batteries were overcome in a few hours fighting on September 29 and 1,500 prisoners taken at the cost of 42 casualties, with only five killed.
The evacuation of the civilians from Calais only served to further undermine morale within Festung Calais. When the truce ended on September 30, the defense simply collapsed and the garrison formally surrendered at 1900hrs. In spite of the enormous numbers of heavy gun bunkers and coastal defenses, the landward defenses were completely inadequate to hinder a determined attack, especially considering the lack of sufficient infantry in the Festung Calais garrison. The garrison did manage to thoroughly wreck the harbor, and it took more than three weeks to rehabilitate the port.
Unlike Calais and Cap Gris-Nez, Dunkirk lacked long-range gun batteries so Montgomery decided to contain the port rather than waste time and troops capturing it. The Festung Dunkirk garrison numbered about 12,000 troops. Both sides engaged in periodic artillery skirmishes, and evacuation of the civilian population occurred during a truce on October 3–6. The Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade replaced most of the Canadian troops cordoning the city after the truce. After the German garrison staged a raid on the night of October 19/20, Operation Waddle was conducted on October 28 to discourage further actions, the last major military action of the siege. The garrison offered to surrender on May 4, 1945, and the town was finally liberated on May 6.
AFTERMATH
The commander of German forces in the west in 1944, Generalfeld-marschall Gerd von Rundstedt was scathing in his later assessment: “The Atlantic Wall was an enormous bluff, less for the enemy than for the German people. Hitler never saw the Atlantic Wall, not even one part of it! He was satisfied if Organization Todt reported that so many tonnes of steel and so many cubic meters of concrete had been used.” The Atlantic Wall failed to deter or seriously challenge the Allied amphibious invasion of France, and indeed, the coastal defenses in Normandy were in most cases overcome in a few hours fighting. The task of defending so long a coastline was impossible, especially given the limitations of Germany’s wartime economy. The Atlantic Wall in France consumed some 17,000,000m3 of concrete compared to about 12,000,000m3 for the Maginot Line, and even then it never came near to the density needed to stop a determined attack. The program was symptomatic of Nazi Germany’s inability to provide rational and efficient direction to its defense economy due to Hitler’s amateur enthusiasms. The Wehrmacht through the war was usually short of tanks, ammunition, and other war essentials, due in no small measure to the flagrant squandering of resources on dubious schemes such as this one.
An argument can be made that the heavy fortifications along the Pas-de-Calais forced the Allies to stage their attack further away from the German frontier in Normandy, but this hardly explains the extravagant wastage of concrete and steel at so many other sites along the French coast where there was no plausible threat of Allied invasion. Furthermore, it is debatable whether the Allied selection of Normandy was prompted primarily by the Atlantic Wall defenses around Calais rather than the formidable concentration of German divisions, including much of the Panzer force, in this area. Indeed, it can also be argued that Normandy was a more fortuitous location for confronting the Wehrmacht in France since it extended the German logistical lines, making them more vulnerable to the ravages of Allied airpower. Given Hitler’s penchant for “stand to the death” orders, the Atlantic Wall proved to be a trap for the nearly 200,000 German troops who were ordered defend the isolated Festung ports.
This “Café Hotel Bar” is in fact a camouflaged SK bunker for a Skoda 47mm Festungpak 36(t) and the armored ball mount for the gun is evident in the false door window. This bunker was part of the Le Havre HaK 022 strongpoint. (NARA)
A fairly typical example of an enfilade casemate for a Skoda 47mm Festungpak 36(t), one of two located on the right flank of strongpoint WN10 to the north of Utah Beach on the Cotentin Peninsula. The metal enclosure for the ball mount is still present, though the gun itself has long since been scrapped. (Author’s collection)
The Atlantic Wall was more firmly rooted in Hitler’s romantic fervor for architectural grandeur than in German military doctrine. Coastal fortification has fallen out of favor since then, and the Atlantic Wall is likely to remain the last major example of this long European tradition.
Of the four massive casemates of MKB Todt, the westernmost is preserved as a museum, two are enveloped in woods and the one closest to the sea is the best exposed. As can be seen, the steel carapace over the embrasure, as well as the gun, have been scrapped, but otherwise the casemate is reasonably intact. (Author’s collection)
THE SITES TODAY
The sheer size and durability of the Atlantic Wall bunkers has made it difficult and expensive to remove them, ensuring the survival of many bunkers more than 60 years after their construction. The French government has refrained from a deliberate demolition program like the German effort to eradicate the Westwall. However, the fortifications are gradually disappearing to both man and nature. Batterie Lindemann in Sangatte is now at the bottom of an artificial pond in connection with the construction of the Channel Tunnel. Most of the remains of Batterie Friedrich August in La Trésorerie were recently demolished to make way for new industrial buildings in the town. Many more have been lost to nature than to intentional removal. A significant number of smaller bunkers located near the sea have become victim of coastal erosion, and many more have simply become heavily overgrown or completely buried over time.